


Pride

by Kanene_Rose



Series: Lesbian Alma Peregrine One-Shots [1]
Category: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children (2016), Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children - Ransom Riggs
Genre: F/F, Gay Pride Month, Happy Ending, Homophobic Language, I Wrote This Instead of Sleeping, I swear, Internalized Homophobia, LGBTQ Themes, Pride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-12
Updated: 2018-06-12
Packaged: 2019-05-21 06:00:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14909690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kanene_Rose/pseuds/Kanene_Rose
Summary: Request: I know its alot to ask but can i request another oneshot. Maybe miss.p and her wife taking the kids to pride to show them that its ok to like both after some idiot harrasses them at their new home???Disclaimer: I own none of Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children.





	Pride

**Author's Note:**

> Guys, this is so awful, I’m sorry. I tried writing this in one night, because I won’t have wifi all weekend…I changed the prompt a teensie bit…she’s her girlfriend in this, rather than her wife, and it’s focused more on their relationship than the kids’.

It was difficult to tell what had put Claire off so badly; she was sitting in the yard, refusing to have tea with Olive, who’d already set the picnic blanket and plastic cups out for their little party. Normally, Sophie would assume that something had gone terribly wrong, but, in the wake of all that had happened in the past few months—the Hollow attacks, searching war-torn London for an ymbryne who could heal Miss Peregrine, their imprisonment by Caul—it was hard to distinguish a newly sour mood from one that had been building and rearing its ugly head for weeks. For all Sophie knew, Claire might have just remembered the tea set she’d left in their Loop, which was now closed, or looked over at the garden and suddenly felt grief over having lost Fiona.

The best she could do right now was join the girls at their tea party and hold Claire close until it passed…

But it didn’t this time.

Alma came and went from the yard, checking up on all the children, and her girlfriend, and noticed that Claire had been in Sophie’s arms several hours already without moving a muscle: she sat there lifelessly, with her head between Sophie’s shoulder and neck and her arms laying lazily in her lap. Every now and again, Sophie would lift a tea cup to her mouth and she’d smile sadly and pretend to take a sip, but she’d quickly curl back up into the woman.

“Claire, sweetie,” Alma said, her voice softer than Sophie could ever remember hearing it, “let’s go for a walk.”

The little girl looked up, took a deep breath, then stared a moment down either end of the street.

“No,” she huffed. “I don’t want to walk. Please, Miss Peregrine, can I just stay here?”

“I’ll carry you,” the ymbryne sing-songed; she raised an eyebrow when Claire showed signs of being swayed. “Come on, we’re going down the street, just the two of us.”

Claire smirked and stood up with her hands above her head. Alma picked the girl up and started toward the sidewalk, a little extra beat in her step so that Claire smiled and her golden curls bounced; with a wink to her girlfriend, Alma turned on her heels and started down one end of the street.

“There were some boys today,” Olive said in a small, squeaky voice once the two were out of earshot. “They walked by when you were helping Miss Peregrine clean up from lunch.”

“Did you feel safe?”

The girl shrugged, but Sophie noticed she wouldn’t meet her eyes.

“They said that you and Miss Peregrine were dykes.”

Sophie froze. Olive was setting her plastic cups and utensils into a neat pile, pretending to pick up after a long meal, but the young woman could do nothing but watch. It took several moments for her to regain her voice.

“Olive?” she asked. “Do…do you know what that word means?”

“They said it meant you were going to hell,” she whispered, “because you should be in love with men instead of women. Claire’s afraid…”

But Olive looked worried, too: her eyes were downcast and Sophie could see her bottom lip trembling ever so slightly. She leaned over the toys and took the little girl into her arms.

“Olive, there’s nothing wrong with me and Miss Peregrine,” she said, kissing the top of her head. “We’re going to be alright. Those people…those people have their own views, but we always see through that, right? We know that it’s okay to be different…right?”

 

  
Sophie had a hard time accepting who she was. First, she discovered that she was something called an ymbryne, capable of turning into a bird and manipulating time. While others like her normally discover their Peculiarities at a young age and attend lessons under Misses Avocet and Bunting, Sophie had only realized she was able to do remarkable things when she was already in her twenties; she’d been brushed off as a hard case, far too old for the usual academy, and handed over to Miss Peregrine as a sort of apprentice. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, she fell in love with her tutor.

It had taken her nearly a year to realize that either sin—being born Peculiar, or being born gay—weren’t actually sins at all.

The word that had been thrown so venomously at Olive and Claire was one that she had used to describe other women before, and she felt all of that guilt rise up in her, along with the insecurity that bubbled up whenever someone brought her sexuality into question.

“I love you,” Alma whispered, wrapping an arm around Sophie’s waist. They had put the children to bed and undressed in relative silence, but Alma knew that Sophie was using that time to overthink and worry, which wouldn’t do her any good. Laying in bed, with her head on her girlfriend’s chest, she began to stroke her hip softly. “You could spend a lifetime thinking about it and never be satisfied with the answer.”

“I know,” Sophie sighed. “I just…I keep hearing my mom and dad saying it, ya know?”

“Mmm,” Alma hummed in agreement, then placed a kiss to the smaller woman’s collarbone. “But worrying won’t change anything, my love. Do you regret being with me?”

Sophie shifted defensively beneath her.

“No,” she snapped, “of course not! Alma, you know that I love you. Whatever happens, whatever anyone says, that will always be true.”

“If that’s how you feel,” she sighed, putting pressure on the other woman’s hip, “then you should know, in your heart, that you and I are fine. Half of a relationship can’t be a sin—if I’m not a mistake, then _you’re_ not a mistake either.”

Sophie rolled onto her side and kissed her.

 

A week later, she gathered up all the children before breakfast to prepare them for their outing. They sat along the couches and chairs in the cramped living room, staring at the coffee table where Sophie and Alma had spread out an assortment of kids’ art supplies. When their headmistress walked in and stood beside Sophie, all eyes suddenly turned.

“Alright, everyone!” she beamed. “We have face paints and markers—do not use those on your skin, or Miss Peregrine will have a fit,” she nodded toward her girlfriend, who suppressed a smirk. “You can also use one of the blank tee-shirts if you want to. Just please, _please_ help each other so you don’t get any ink on the couch cushions.”

The children spent an hour excitedly scribbling rainbows and weird, fantastic designs across plain white shirts and any expanse of skin they could find. They were huddled around the coffee table, fighting over supplies, picking out colors and where they wanted them to go (Horace, who was infamous for his fashion sense, wouldn’t allow a single drop of paint on his face, and Hugh allowed Claire and Olive to paint a garden’s worth of vibrant, multi-colored flowers all over his arms). Even Emma and Jake, the oldest, were having fun—they’d found a corner to themselves and started trying to land stripes of paint across each other’s faces.

Alma was a bit of a perfectionist. Rather than do her own face paint, however, she sat in the love seat beside Sophie and drew a rainbow across each eyelid.

“Aren’t you going to dress up for Pride?” the younger woman asked, remaining still as Alma put on the last purple stripe.

“They’ll be colorful enough, don’t you think?” she smirked. Sophie almost didn’t notice her wink at Millard, who had covered his hands in paint and wrapped his head in a large rainbow scarf—on anyone else, Sophie would have considered it overkill, but she understood that he was just looking to be included and, well, he couldn’t if no one could see him.

“I suppose.”

They all practically skipped down the street and onto the city bus, where the younger children began pointing out any commuters wearing some sort of Pride regalia.

“We’re almost there!” Olive kept shouting once the crowd came into view. “Look! We’re almost there!”

“A few more minutes, sweetie.”

By the time they’d all gotten off the bus and joined the din, Claire had lost all signs of wariness; she was just as excited about the event as she was about coloring all over herself that morning. Her eyes were wide and she asked to join a group of girls around her age, each wearing a shirt with the phrase “Love is Love’ on the front is large, stylized gold letters and waving a small rainbow flag.

“Of course,” Alma said.

She stood back and watched the children find their own places in the crowd: Olive and Bronwyn followed Claire; Hugh, Horace, and Enoch had pushed their way to the front and were talking with a couple of girls, a few of whom had their hands intertwined; and Emma and Jake ran off, not to be found again for several hours. That left Alma, as always, behind the rest—far enough from her charges to allow them independence, but close enough to keep a steady eye on them in case they should need her. One arm was placed firmly around Sophie’s waist.

The latter quickly noticed that Millard was staying away from the crowd.

“Mill,” she called, “why don’t you go join the boys over there?”

“I, um,” his voice was muffled slightly by the scarf around his head, “I wanted to…”

But instead of finishing his thought, he simply uncrossed his arms and pulled his shirt flat. Across the front, in his own messy handwriting, it said “I love my moms.” There was a strangely thick moment of silence between the three of them, then he tipped his hat, bid them goodbye, and pushed his way quickly through to crowd.

“Moms,” Sophie chuckled. She loved them all so dearly, but she didn’t know how to express how happy she felt when she’d read it—his acceptance of her into his family, as more than just his guardian’s temporary girlfriend—so she laughed and repeated, “Moms,” without needing to say any more.

“You did say ‘always,’ didn’t you? I’m holding you to that.”

Sophie rolled her eyes.

“Yeah,” she laughed, “but how would Millard know—” Then the realization struck her, and she froze. “A…Alma, you didn’t just…”

“Yes,” she smirked, “I did.”

But Sophie was still hesitant.

“You mean…you’re proposing to me? Like…like _marry me_ type proposing?”

“Millard asked me this morning if it was okay to wear that,” she laughed, “and I decided then that I’d waited long enough to ask. But I love you, Sophie Emerson, and I just wanted you to feel safe loving me back.”

Sophie wrapped her arms around Alma’s neck and kissed her so hard she nearly fell backward. When they parted, they were both laughing—Sophie’s breathy cry, near tears, and Alma’s loud, honey roar.

“Is that a yes?”

“ _Yes_.”

 

  
The children were exhausted; Alma and Sophie herded them onto the bus right before curfew and got them each into their rooms just in time to pass out on their beds. Most still had their day clothes on, and all of them had some leftover rainbow paint somewhere on their body.

Sophie took a warm facecloth and began dabbing gently at Claire’s arm.

“I saw a lot of mommies,” the little girl yawned, struggling to keep her eyes open.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” she replied groggily. “My new friend, Ashley, she said she’s always had two mommies…an’…an’ she was so happy,” she yawned again. “I think I understand. I’m happy with mine, too.”

The little girl’s eyes fluttered closed for the last time and her breathing steadied.

“Are you all done?” Alma whispered from the doorway.

“They’re so adorable.” Sophie felt so pathetic—she could hear the tears in her voice, and she knew her eyes would be red when she turned around to face Alma, but she couldn’t help herself. “I don’t think I can get any more of that paint off without waking them, though.”

“Hmm,” Alma hummed. “Let them sleep."


End file.
